


Restoration

by afictionado



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22009900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afictionado/pseuds/afictionado
Summary: Alternate ending to TROS beginning on Exegol. Chock full of massive spoilers for TROS, hence the lack of a "real" summary.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 34
Kudos: 253





	1. Tendrils

**Author's Note:**

> I will be taking plenty of liberties with the Force here but I figure if JJ & Rian can do it, then so can I. Also I can't really remember which ship Rey took with her to Exegol, so just play along.

Out the blackness she first feels energy. 

_His_ energy – _their_ energy. 

Then she feels warmth, blooming across her abdomen. She realizes it’s from the weight of his hand. Hers reaches out of its own volition to cover it. And then her eyes open.

He swims into focus in front of her, his eyes glassy with unshed tears. And then she jerks upward at the realization – he’s _different_. 

She’d seen it in the midst of her battle with her grandfather, in their Force bond. His eyes, once filled with conflict, instead had gleamed in resolution. His mouth, once a permanent scowl, had barely upturned in a smirk and spoke volumes to her in that brief moment. 

Now here he is, in front of her and all around her, a strong arm cradling her back while one hand cups the nape of her neck. She can’t help but stare in wonderment.

Gone is the scar she’d given him so long ago on Takodana, likely healed by her touch when the waves were crashing around them on Kef Bir. Gone is the misery and barely-contained rage. In its place is, simply… him. 

She can’t help the smile. “Ben?”

And then his eyes brim over with tears. His lips press together in a shaky smile and her hand reaches out to cup his face. He doesn’t need to answer in the affirmative. She can feel it. He’s back. _Ben Solo_. The man whose hand she has wanted to take for what feels like a few lifetimes. 

The man whose lips she can no longer resist kissing.

When she leans into him, she sucks in a breath and feels him do the same at the sudden rush of energy – their bond – springing to life around them. His arms sweep her up against him fully and she’s never felt so fulfilled.

She pulls back to look at him again and that’s when he smiles, a sight so beautiful she feels as though her heart might burst out of her chest. But the headiness of their kiss and his smile and the fact that they conquered the dark side – _together_ – suddenly fades into the background as she sees his expression change. 

He looks pained. His breath catches in his throat and then he’s sinking away from her, collapsing to the ground while their eyes remain locked.

“Ben…” She cradles his head before it hits the stone beneath them. “Ben?” Her hand lands on his chest and he covers it with his own, squeezing feebly.

Panic seizes her as she realizes what’s happened – he had expended his energy waking her up. “No, no, no, no, no,” she whispers, searching the air in front of her desperately for a solution. 

This isn’t the work of the Force – the Force was not a transfer of life, it was energy. It was supposed to be all around them.

Rey squeezes his hand more tightly and snaps her eyes shut, attempting to steady her breathing. “Please…” 

She reaches out with the Force, weak tendrils in a vast nothingness, searching for the thousands of Jedi that had just helped her. 

“Be with me. Please.”

This isn’t the end of Ben’s story, she won’t let it be. Not when she’s only just gotten him back. 

“Luke… Leia… _anybody, please!_ ” she shouts, and she listens in vain as her voice echoes in the silence.

She looks down at Ben, their clasped hands growing sweaty in their desperation to hang onto each other. 

“Rey…” His voice emerges a crippled whisper. “Rey, I need to tell you—”

She stops him with a shake of her head, his image blurring behind a wall of tears. “Don’t. Don’t say anything, just rest.”

It’s then that she notices his free hand cupping his left side. She reaches for it and pries it away, now able to see the blood pumping out with his every shaking breath.

“Ben…”

He had been mortally wounded – again – when the Emperor had struck him off the cliff. And yet he used what little energy he had to revive her.

“Stay still,” she tells him, and he nods and closes his eyes.

Both hands cover the wound and she closes her eyes once more, steadying her breathing as she tries again to reach out with the Force.

She envisions her energy as tendrils of light – she seeks his wound in the darkness and wraps those tendrils around it. As she takes measured breaths in and out, nostrils sucking in and mouth expelling, she feels a bit of his energy return. It’s not much, but it’s something. She has to try harder.

But the tendrils of light weaken – their light dulls in her mind’s eye and she feels herself shaking. She shuts her eyes harder, concentrating with all her might.

_Easy…_

She hears a voice in her head, the familiar alto cadence snapping her eyes open in surprise. She first meets Ben’s gaze, his expression mirroring her own. And then she looks up.

There in front of her, just past Ben’s shoulder, stands Leia. 

She looks ethereal – bathed in blue light just as Luke had been back on Ahch-To. With both hands still pressing on Ben’s wound, Rey feels him shift slightly beneath her, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.

The shock in his voice is evident. “Mom.”

The name sounds strange coming from his lips and especially when paired with the sight of her former master, the woman who had taken her under her wing even though she likely could feel the dark potential in Rey.

Leia steps toward them, her energy filling the air between them. She kneels just behind her son’s head, a gesture of her hand indicating that he should lie back. Ben does so unquestioningly, still staring in surprise up at the image of his mother.

With a wry smile so perfectly Leia, she tells him, _I didn’t give my life to get you back, only for you to lose yours._

“His wound,” Rey breaks in, drawing Leia’s attention. She knows her voice is weak, and she sounds like she’s on the verge of crying, but she does nothing to mask it. Leia, even as a Force-induced mirage, would have been able to see through it anyway. “I can’t… I can’t close it. The Force, it—”

 _It’s weakened,_ Leia tells her. _The amount of energy expended to not only summon all the Jedi but to then turn it on the Emperor has drained most of the Force energy on this planet._

She then looks down at her son and quirks one eyebrow. _Your little resurrection trick took what was remaining._

Shocked, Rey looks down at Ben. “You _resurrected_ me? I thought – I thought maybe I had just been unconscious, not…” She swallows hard, unable to say the word. 

“You died,” Ben tells her, not meeting her eyes. Instead, they focus somewhere in the middle-distance. “I had to bring you back.” He then raises his eyes to her, the look in them almost startling. “I couldn’t lose everything.”

Before the implication sinks in, another blue light swims into view, materializing into Luke. 

_There’s not enough light energy left on this planet to heal his wounds,_ he says, his hands templing in front of him. _This planet didn’t have much light Force energy to begin with. Everything that remains is from the dark side, and the dark is not meant for healing._

“W-What do we do?” Rey asks, tightening her hand around Ben’s. "I can't just let him die!" Looking down at him, she wants to echo, _I can't lose everything._

Luke and Leia exchange a look, their light fading in and out like a glitching hologram. Rey looks down at Ben to find him already staring at her, searching her face back and forth as if he's heard the unspoken thought.

Finally, Luke speaks. _Leia and I may be able to summon enough energy to bring your ship to you. But you need to leave_ immediately. _If you wait much longer…_

He never finishes, but Rey can fill in the blanks and isn’t willing to entertain that thought for a moment.

“Then please,” she beseeches them both. 

The twins exchange one more look and then nod in unison, each closing their eyes and bowing their heads. In front of each of them, their fingertips and thumbs are pressed together – a triangle she’s seen Luke’s hands form before when summoning energy from the Force.

Ben’s thumb strokes the back of her hand and she looks down at him. His other hand leaves his side to clasp around her wrist, their entwined hands resting over his heart.

She feels it thumping under her, its beat stilted and feeble. She swallows. This has to work. She’s only just gotten a glimpse of Ben Solo.

When she looks up at Luke and Leia again, their eyes are still closed but the blue light around them has grown stronger – brighter. Luke’s right hand begins to raise and Leia’s left mirrors it. 

The ground rumbles beneath them and she can hear rocks falling. Ben pulls her toward him with what little strength he has and ducks his head toward her, his arms shielding her from the falling debris.

She’s surrounded by him – his arms and his scent and it’s too much for her to consider this failing; to consider that these may be her last moments with him. 

Hot tears squeeze past her closed eyelids and she can feel them dripping onto his sweater as her hands try to encircle him. But he’s on his back and the ground is rumbling so fiercely now that she doesn’t dare move.

She breathes in and feels a sudden resurgence of energy. Something large crumbles nearby and she lifts her head to see her ship crushing the Palpatine throne beneath its weight, having been drawn down from the planet’s surface. 

_Go,_ she hears Leia tell her, and then she and Luke vanish into thin air, leaving Rey and Ben alone once more.

She scrambles to her feet, her hands grabbing at his sweater and his arms as she tries to pull him up with her. He struggles and just barely gets to his feet before his knees buckle. She wraps one arm around his waist and fits herself into his side, propping him up just enough that they can both stumble toward the ship.

“Hurry,” she breathes, a bit redundantly, as she punches the button to lower the door. 

They fumble inside and she gets him to a bunk against the wall just as he collapses into it. She wants to remain there with him – to breathe with him and cling to him for just a moment – but she knows there isn’t time.

She rushes back to the door and closes it before she gets herself to the pilot’s seat. She draws in a shuddering breath, her bones protesting any further movement. She’s still pretty weak herself, and a voice in her head reminds her that she had died.

She wants to collapse. She wants to fall into a dreamless, deep sleep until she and Ben are both fully healed. Instead, she punches the ship’s ignition and it shudders to life around them. With a few lever pulls they’re hovering in the air, then rising back to the surface. 

She momentarily surveys the damage all around her – numerous ships belonging to both the Resistance and the Final Order are in pieces in every direction. A dim voice at the back of her mind urges her to do a quick scan for her friends, but she knows she can’t. She has to get them off the planet. So she stows her concern and steers them around the flaming Star Destroyers, X-wings and Tie-fighters until they traverse the atmosphere.


	2. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s still coated with ash and dust from the destruction that had surrounded them on Exegol. Though the long scar on one side of his face is now gone, there’s another on the opposite side, as well as a large welt blooming under his left eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to @fanoffandoms2 for reminding me that she had taken Luke's X-Wing to Exegol. So, I shall continue my deviation from canon since they need a place to rest. :)

*****

Before long, the planet of Exegol is far behind them, and her strength begins returning to normal. Ben is behind her and to her right, lying in one of the bunks on the ship. 

She hopes he’s resting while she charts their course. She takes a breath and reaches out briefly with her energy, searching for him through the Force. Her energy finds his – it’s weak, but not quite as weak as it had been earlier. 

Before their Force bond connects them fully, she shuts her mind off from his, for now thankful that he seems to be doing alright. That’s when she senses him reaching for her as if in answer. With their course mapped, she toggles the autopilot and rises from the captain’s seat, heading toward the bunks. 

“You should be resting,” she tells him when she reaches his side. “You’ve been through a lot.”

He props himself up on an elbow as she sits beside him, and his eyes lock on hers. Where she once saw fire and tumult in the browns, she now sees softness and concern. His voice is just as soft as he returns in a smooth baritone, “I should say the same to you.”

She draws in a breath and takes a moment to just look at him. He’s still coated with ash and dust from the destruction that had surrounded them on Exegol. Though the long scar on one side of his face is now gone, there’s another on the opposite side, as well as a large welt blooming under his left eye.

The sweater he’d worn beneath Kylo Ren’s tunic is torn at the seam on his shoulder and stained with blood near the abdomen, where he’d been injured from his fall. Without much thought, her hand reaches for him – it covers the spot she had been desperately trying to heal – and she closes her eyes. 

She’s just begun to concentrate on her breathing when his voice stops her. “Rey.”

His hand covers hers and the sensation carries enough of a spark that her eyes fly open, the tiniest gasp of surprise escaping her lips.

She hears the smile in his voice before it appears on his lips. His large thumb sweeps across the back of her hand. “It’s alright for now. Save your energy.”

She wants to protest. She wants to tell him that his act of heroism nearly killed him, and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to heal him right now.

But it’s his eyes that stop her – it’s his energy mingling with hers that reminds her that she too is exhausted. She still hasn’t even allowed herself to process the fact that she had been dead, and that he used his remaining energy to resurrect her.

“Ben,” she dips her head down toward him, and he leans to meet her.

But instead of lips connecting it’s their foreheads, and they inhale at the same time with eyes closed. She breathes out slowly, finding a moment of calm within the storm that has been these last few days. 

Everything comes to her in flashes – training with Leia and the first whispers of Palpatine’s return; the disaster on Pasaana and the revelation of her true lineage; the sea-soaked battle against Kylo Ren on the wreckage of the Death Star, and finally to the showdown against her grandfather. 

Now there’s no more Palpatine and no more Kylo Ren and it’s just Ben Solo breathing in tandem with her, his forehead suffusing her with warmth. She thinks back to the moment on Kef Bir, amidst their battle – when they both felt Leia’s death. She thinks of the way she had mortally wounded him and then healed him – the way he had looked at her was conflicting to say the least. 

And then when their Force bond connected them on Exegol, he looked like a completely different person. Gone were the shadows of conflict in his eyes, and the permanent scowl. And then she can’t help but ask in a whisper, “What changed?”

“Hmm?” He leans back and searches her eyes, his brows furrowed in confusion.

She sits up but remains at his side, their hips exchanging warmth. “When I left you… on Kef Bir. After we… and after I…” She feels a bit dumb trailing off, but she knows that he can read her well enough to know the ends of her sentences. “What changed between then and when you came to help me?”

He draws in a long breath through his nose, looking off into the distance as if gathering his thoughts. He sits up straighter until his back is against the wall of the bunk. After a moment, a strong hand falls to her thigh, gripping it lightly as if he’s grounding himself. Finally he answers, “Everything.”

She looks down at his hand, large against her slim thigh and she realizes just how much his size eclipses hers. She thinks of how many times he could have easily overpowered her or truly hurt her and didn’t.

She feels him looking at her and she raises her eyes to his. He’s looking at her thoughtfully, and his words come out slow and measured. “Right now, I can’t be sure if it was the fact that I felt my mother’s death… or the way that you healed me… or the fact that I finally faced my own turmoil over what I did to my father.”

She silently earmarks that comment for later exploration and watches him patiently.

“Maybe I realized I was fighting a losing battle trying to gain control of the entire galaxy. Or maybe I had just reached the end of tolerating all the manipulation I’ve endured.”

It’s her turn to furrow her brows now, and her hand covers his on her thigh. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that your grandfather has been in my head since childhood. He’d been sowing seeds of darkness in me for as long as I can remember. Before I trained under my uncle. Back then it was my grandfather’s voice. Then later it was Snoke. But behind all of it was him. He created Snoke, who in turn helped create Kylo Ren. He turned me against my parents, my training… everything. And along the way, he made me believe that no one out there could possibly understand me except him. And that nothing but the dark side of the Force could offer what I was looking for.”

She feels his grip tighten and she almost winces at his strength. She squeezes his hand and his grip relaxes.

“But maybe he wasn’t counting on you and I finding each other. Or that you would relentlessly see the good in me,” he smirks. His hand leaves her thigh then and reaches for her face, a thumb stroking her cheekbone tenderly. “Or that together, we could become something so incredibly rare and powerful that it could take him down. What did he call us?”

At that, she allows herself a smile. “A Force dyad. Something not seen for millennia, apparently.”

He hums shortly as he nods, his eyes watching his thumb on her cheek. “A dyad. Something I’d be interested in learning more about.”

“Then you’re in luck,” she tells him on a sigh, rising to her feet, “Because when we rejoin the group on Ajan Kloss, we can pick up the original Jedi texts.”

“ _What?_ ” His voice is no longer tender as he sits ramrod straight.

She spins on her heel at the sound of his voice and looks at him. She feels the panic crackling off him almost as strongly as if there were visible sparks. 

She furrows her brow and tries again. “When we rejoin the group on Ajan Kloss—"

“ _No_. No, no we-we cannot stop there.” His eyes are suddenly wild, and he stands against better judgment. 

She notices he still staggers – there hasn’t been enough time for him to heal yet – though he seems to ignore it as his voice raises. “Rey, there are members of the Resistance who know who I am – _without the mask_. After everything I’ve done, what do you think – that they’ll welcome me with open arms? I’d be executed on sight!”

“But you’re not Kylo Ren anymore. You’ve changed.” Even when the words leave her mouth she knows they’re inadequate.

“And yet the body count remains the same,” he argues. He’s pacing in front of her with all the chaotic energy of a caged animal and she can do nothing but follow his movements with her eyes. He stuffs a hand through his already-tousled hair and stops in his tracks, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. 

After a moment, he seems to calm slightly. He opens his eyes and turns to face her. His voice lowers, and he takes a few steps toward her. “Rey.” 

His hands fall to her shoulders and again she feels dwarfed by his frame.

“I know how badly you’d like the slate to be wiped clean. But I’ve done too much. I cannot show my face there.” He shakes his head. “Not now.”

She searches his eyes and takes stock of the storm brewing there. His grasp on her shoulders tightens as it had on her thigh and she raises her hands to his, urging him silently to relax. He lets out a long, shuddering breath and pulls her against him, his arms wrapping around her small shoulders while she allows hers to close around his waist.

Though she’s loathe to admit it, he’s right. As Kylo Ren, he had committed atrocities of astronomical proportion. He destroyed numerous planets with Starkiller Base – had wiped out what remained of the Republic – and murdered countless innocent people in his path.

She thinks of Finn – once under the employ of Ben’s alter ego – and what he would say. 

_How could you save such a monster?_

She thinks of Rose Tico, whose sister gave her life attempting to destroy one of Kylo’s ships, and who was very nearly killed at the hand of one of his loyal soldiers, Captain Phasma.

She thinks of Poe and how as Leia’s right-hand man, he very likely would hold a grudge over everything Ben put his mother through.

Ben’s lips resting against the top of her head pull her from her thoughts. She feels the vibration of his voice against her chest as he murmurs into her hair, “I can’t go to Ajan Kloss with you.”

She swallows. “Then stay here,” she tells him. Stepping out of his embrace, she looks up at him and tells him, “Stay on the ship when we land. I’ll pack my things and we’ll go elsewhere until the dust settles a bit.”

“I can’t ask you to abandon those people, Rey. It’s not right. I’m not worth it.”

His last comment causes a pang in her chest, but she ignores it, instead telling him, “You’re not asking. And I’m not abandoning them. When I get off the ship, I’ll tell them what happened.” 

Off his look, she clarifies, “For the most part. I’ll tell them what I went through on Exegol and that I need to go off on my own for a bit. Then I’ll gather the texts, and pack some clothes for the both of us, and then I’ll get back on the ship. Then we’ll leave – _together_.”

At the word ‘together’ she sees a bit of light return to his eyes. She wants to reach for him again but instead she goes to the captain’s seat, checking the map to see how close they are.

“We’ll be there shortly,” she says. “Until then, you should rest.”

Ben looks as though he wants to say something – either in protest or something else entirely – but instead, he closes his mouth and nods. He returns to the bunk, his fingers just barely catching hers as he passes, and she turns to watch him as he lies down again and closes his eyes.


	3. Worth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though she’d promised he could stay on the ship, it did nothing to sate his unease about being there in the first place. He’d had a bad feeling about this since she first brought it up and he feels no differently as the ship now slowly makes its descent to the planet’s surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next updates may be spaced further apart since I'm returning to work after a long vacation. But at home, this is still my top priority. :)

Ben is awoken by the groaning of the ship, and startles upward as he feels it shuddering beneath him. For an instant he’s panicked, until he spots Rey at the helm, taking them in for a landing. 

Beyond her is a lush green landscape – the jungles of Ajan Kloss – and he finds his stomach turning unconsciously. 

Though she’d promised he could stay on the ship, it did nothing to sate his unease about being there in the first place. He’d had a bad feeling about this since she first brought it up and he feels no differently as the ship now slowly makes its descent to the planet’s surface.

“How do you feel?” 

Her soft voice draws him back to the present moment, and his eyes catch with hers. She’s looking at him over her shoulder, her hands occupied with the ship’s controls, and he takes a breath. 

“Awful.”

When her brows knit together in concern, he clarifies, “I mean – about being here. Not… physically.”

She frowns at him and he wants to scream and laugh all at once. Her attempt at an intimidating look is just shy of laughable, and the disappointed line her lips are making does nothing to sway him. Then there’s the part of him that wants to scream at her until he’s blue in the face that she has _absolutely no idea_ what he’d be up against if he got off the ship with her. 

For a start, the former Stormtrooper would certainly recognize him. As a member of his janitorial staff on Starkiller Base, Ben knows that he had at some point passed him without his mask on.

And Dameron had to have known about him. He had been close enough to Leia that she certainly would have told him about her son and all the grief he had caused her. 

Then of course there were whatever surviving Resistance fighters that had been around as he had grown up. They knew what he looked like and knew what he became. Even in a best-case scenario, he knew he’d still be facing lifelong imprisonment. 

Rey was quick to forgive him – perhaps a bit _too_ quick, he thinks. Their bond opened more than a line of communication between them. It seemed to have given her a window into the very depths of him. And despite her assertion on Ahch-To that he was a _murderous snake_ , it wasn’t long before her tone had changed; before she had made it her sole mission to turn him back to the light.

 _I did want to take your hand_ , her voice echoes in his head. _Ben’s hand._

It’s then that he feels her. What he envisions as golden tendrils – her Force energy – reaching for him despite their proximity. 

He shutters his mind from her reach and rises from the bunk. “We’re here.” 

From her expression, she’s not certain if it had been a statement or a question. Either way, she nods. “Yes.”

The ship’s noise dulls to a low hum as it settles on the ground. After a moment, she shuts it off entirely and stands.

She’s looking at him but he’s looking beyond her at the landscape, and at the hundreds of Resistance members celebrating their victory. He takes a few steps back toward the bunk, fearful he’ll be seen. 

“How long?” he asks, and knows she’ll infer his meaning.

“Not long at all,” she tells him. “I’ll catch up with the others for a moment, then grab the texts and some clothes.”

He feels something missing – a distinct lack of energy – and then he meets her eyes. “My mother,” he says. “This is where she…”

Rey swallows and nods, taking his hand as she stands in front of him. “It’s why I thought you’d—”

“No,” he cuts her off, knowing what she’d been about to say. “I’d like to pay respect to my mother but not at the cost of my life.”

She rolls her eyes, and he’s momentarily surprised by the sight of it. “I highly doubt they’d just open fire at first sight.”

He knows she thinks he’s being ridiculous, and again he’s left with the urge to yell at her that she has no idea what he would be walking into.

“No, perhaps a better scenario would be them capturing me and locking me up while they plan my execution.”

“Ben…”

“Rey.” He pins her with a look, his voice brooking no argument.

She searches his eyes momentarily, then nods. “Alright.” She grabs a nearby bag and slings it over her shoulder. “Fine. I’ll be back shortly.”

He nods, and ducks out of view of the door as she lowers it and goes outside. He sits on the bunk again, his hands curling around the edge of it as he clenches his jaw.

The thought of seeing anyone in the Resistance fills him with dread and anger. He knows what they’ll do to him – why can’t Rey see it?

He hears her being greeted by the Stormtrooper and by Dameron as the door raises behind her, and then he’s shut away from it all, only able to hear muffled cheers and celebrating.

He sighs and dips his head, lifting one hand from the bunk to stuff it through his hair.

With all of Rey’s naivete and his bloodied past, he wonders if this is a bad idea. They’re essentially running off together, and to what? Some sort of ill-conceived _happily ever after_ on a random planet?

He remembers his mother, telling him tales as a young child of a princess and a scoundrel saving each other as they save the galaxy from evil forces, falling in love in the process and living happily ever after. When he had gotten older, he’d realized that had been his mother’s story. And his father’s. 

But it certainly wasn’t his. Someone like him wouldn’t see a ‘happily ever after.’ He wasn’t a prince – or maybe just barely, by birth – and _scoundrel_ would be too nice a word to describe him. He’d been a dictator – a murderer. He’d destroyed entire planets in a fit of rage. All the penance and kind deeds he could conjure would never outweigh all the lives he’d taken. 

“She deserves more,” he murmurs aloud, and he gets to his feet restlessly. 

Rey deserves so much more than whatever it is he has to offer. She’s beautiful, certainly, and the light and kindness that emanates from her should never be directed at someone like him. He’s not worthy of someone so damned… _good_.

He should tell her. He _needs_ to tell her. Especially before she packs up her entire life for the likes of him.

He draws in a deep breath and closes his eyes, reaching out with his Force energy to find her. In the beginning, this connection of theirs was rather involuntary and unpredictable. Over time, it became easier and easier to control, to the point where they could call upon one another, and their counterpart could either let them in or shut them out.

This time he feels Rey letting him in. And whereas he normally is not able to see her surroundings, he now can. He feels as though he’s sitting near her, on a bunk inside the base instead of on the ship. 

She’s alone, which is good. And she’s crouched down rummaging through a drawer of some sort, pulling out ancient-looking books. The Jedi texts. 

“What are you doing?” he asks softly, a bit dumbly he realizes. It’s obvious what she’s doing.

“I’m retrieving the Jedi texts. Commander D’Acy also mentioned a collection of journals that belonged to your mother. She asked that I keep them safe.”

“Where are the others?”

“Outside. Still celebrating.” Without moving her head from the task at hand, she raises her eyes to him. “They’re not happy I’m leaving.”

He nods, throwing a glance to the heavy door that currently conceals them. “I imagine they’re not.”

“Though General Dameron is quite pleased with himself, as usual.”

Ben can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. “General?”

With a nod, Rey finishes gathering everything and stands up with her arms wrapped around books that are entirely too big for her small frame to bear. “Of course. He was second in command to your mother.”

He holds out his hands, thankful in that moment they are able to transfer items through their bond. Rather than lug the books with her back to the ship, she instead passes them to him one by one, until he has them all stacked next to him on the bunk.

“Still,” he finally replies to her comment, “I should think there’d be someone more qualified than that idiotic fly-boy.”

“What does it matter, anyway?” Rey sighs, moving toward another drawer beneath another bunk and pulling it open, rifling through the mounds of clothes inside. “The war is over. There’s no need for Generals and Commanders and Captains during a time of peace.”

“Do you truly think that’s the end of any conflict?” he can’t help but ask. “Surely there are survivors out there on the other side. The First Order, the Final Order… the Sith.”

She stops, still crouched with a small pile of clothes on her lap. “My grandfather was all of the Sith. I became all of the Jedi and killed him.”

Before he can argue further, a third voice joins them and startles them both.

“Rey of Jakku! Before you leave, my child, I—”

It’s Maz Kanata. She stops in her tracks directly in front of him, her large eyes even larger behind the goggles. Ben freezes, knowing her Force abilities and knowing she can see him. 

He curses under his breath as Rey stands with a gasp, dropping the pile of clothes to the floor.


	4. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He has much of his father in him. The urge to flee when complications arise was something Han was known for. As was the mindset of not deserving happiness.”

*****

Rey stands helplessly as Maz looks Ben up and down. Her connection to the Force is strong, as Rey has already witnessed. She’s able to tap into the feelings of those around her – practically able to read minds.

And right now she’s tapped in to Ben as a small smile twitches at one corner of her mouth. “Still afraid of me I see, young Solo? It appears some things don’t change.”

Rey steps forward, trying to stifle any amusement she feels bubbling at Ben’s frozen expression. He almost looks as if he shouldn’t dare move, lest Maz give chase. 

“Maz, I can explain,” she begins.

“None necessary, child,” she is told, and Maz makes her way over to help Rey scoop up the clothes that had fallen in her surprise. “I told you there was one who could still return, didn’t I?”

“I-I thought that… perhaps you meant Luke back then?”

Maz shakes her head. “No. His path was nearing its end, as I could sense. No, it was the turmoil I felt in Ben Solo that made me certain he could be brought back to the light.”

Maz glances over her shoulder at Ben, who averts his eyes. Rey earmarks that as well for later exploration.

“And it appears as though I was correct.”

Rey watches, trying to make sense of the mess of clothing in her arms as Maz walks back to Ben. If _she_ can see him through the Force bond, that would mean anyone else with Force sensitivity would know he was there too. 

Good thing Maz Kanata is the only other Force user on the planet.

“Your path to the light doesn’t end here,” she tells him. “You have left much destruction in your wake. Atonement is the key.”

Rey watches as Ben nods, a hard swallow causing his Adam’s apple to bob up and down. 

“I know,” he says lowly. He looks up and Rey locks eyes with him, furrowing her brows at the conflict she sees there. 

What is he conflicted about? 

“And walking the path of atonement alone is not the answer,” Maz tells him, clearly able to discern his hesitation. “Nor is a solitary life.”

At that, Rey furrows her brows and looks to Ben. “A solitary life?”

Maz turns to her. “He feels he is undeserving of redemption. Of friendship or love.”

The look Rey shoots him now is filled with hurt. “Ben…”

She hears him curse under his breath as he averts his eyes, stuffing a hand through his hair. 

Tears sting her eyes and she blinks them back fiercely. She swallows hard and wants to yell at him. Yet she remembers they’re not alone and she holds back, looking down at Maz.

“My child…” Maz holds out a small hand, beckoning Rey to bend to her level. 

Rey does so, one knee touching down on the cold floor of the bunker. She throws a quick glance at Ben through their bond, who watches her quietly.

Maz’s hand touching her cheek draws her back and she stares into the large goggles in front of her.

“The belonging you seek is _still_ ahead of you. Be patient. A long-tortured soul does not repair itself overnight. It will take time.”

She nods, stuffing down any last vestiges of hurt and anger she feels toward Ben. “Thank you,” she says.

Maz simply nods and reaches into a bag attached to her belt. “As for what I wanted to give you before you depart…”

Rey sets the clothing aside and holds out her hands as two long metal cylinders are placed in her hand.

She studies them. One is curved, with small symbols etched into its surface. The other is a bit thicker, with thin circles etched one on top of the other along the entire base, giving it a ridged feel.

“Lightsabers,” she murmurs, turning them both over in her hand.

Maz nods. “I had a feeling they’d be in good hands with you.”

Rey hits a thin button on the larger one and then frowns as nothing happens.

Ben’s voice breaks in. “They’re unfinished. Just hilts.”

Maz agrees, “They were used once by Jedi in training, but their plasma blades have long since been destroyed. They are in need of restoration.”

“Thank you,” Rey says, and pats Maz’s hand. “We’ll take care of these.”

“Please do,” she says, and throws a look back to Ben. “And of one another. For now, you should be on your way. I am not the only one here that can sense the new presence,” she says, nodding toward Ben.

Rey locks eyes with him, the two of them now slightly alarmed. “There are others who know that he’s here?”

“There are others who feel a shift – something new and powerful. But I am sorry, children, I cannot discern who.”

Ben stands. “We have to go. Now.”

Rey nods, stuffing the clothing she’d gathered into her bag along with the two saber hilts. “Maz, I can’t thank you enough.”

Ben nods, and Rey can feel him beginning to sever their connection. “Thank you Maz.”

“Don’t disappoint me, young Solo. You can find what you seek if you do not isolate yourself and if you do not bury your past.”

With another nod, Ben has vanished and it’s just Rey and Maz in the bunker. They look at one another for a moment. 

“You won’t tell the others?” Rey asks her, tentatively.

“For now, child, your secret is safe with me. I had been awaiting his return longer than you and would like to see him flourish in the light.”

“Did he really want to go off on his own?”

Maz smiles. “He has much of his father in him. The urge to flee when complications arise was something Han was known for. As was the mindset of not deserving happiness.” She blinks behind the large goggles. “You still have much to learn about him and about yourself, Rey of Jakku. You have much to understand of the gravity of his past. Be patient.”

Rey nods. “I will try. Thank you, Maz.”

She stoops for a quick hug and then heads back outside to join the still-celebrating Resistance. When she does, she finds Finn staring at her curiously. 

She smiles and makes her way over to him. “Where is your fellow General?”

He smirks, throwing a glance behind him at Poe, who is currently talking excitedly with Lando and Jannah.

“Still telling stories.” When he turns back to her, his expression goes solemn once again. “Everything okay?”

“Of course,” she tells him, heart thudding a bit at the thought of Ben hiding away on the ship. “Why?”

The way he scrutinizes her is a bit unsettling. She’s always liked Finn and thought him a wonderful friend. Right now, though, he almost seems suspicious of her.

“I just had a feeling.”

Her stomach momentarily bottoms out near her feet before righting itself again. “What sort of a feeling?” 

Just then, she remembers his attempt to reveal something when they were trapped in the sand pit. 

“You had wanted to tell me something,” she says. “On Pasaana. What was it?”

She watches as Finn turns, looking over his shoulder. When she realizes he’s looking at the ship, she does her best to keep her expression calm. _He_ couldn't possibly be the one Maz was talking about, could he?

“Finn, what?”

He looks back at her and studies her a long moment. Then, he shakes his head and is back to his old self. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Yeah, it was nothing important. It can wait until you get back.” Then, after a beat, he asks, “How long will you be gone?”

She draws in a breath and touches the bag at her side, making sure the top flap is closed. She can feel the bulky weight of the clothing and the metal of the lightsaber hilts. “That’s difficult to say for right now. I’m not certain how much time I’ll need.”

That’s when Poe returns, a drink in hand as he slings an arm over Finn’s shoulders, looking happy as can be in his orange flight suit. He jerks his chin at Rey. “You’re leaving? You haven’t even had a drink yet! Here.”

He shoves his cup into her hand, and she can’t help the chuckle. “Thank you, really. I-I have to fly though, so I’d best leave this to you.” 

Poe looks almost hurt when she gives it back, though he’s quick to recover as he tells her, “Your loss, Jedi.”

They then watch as he heads over to Chewbacca, shoving the drink into his furry paws instead.

Finn shakes his head at him. “Oh boy. He’s gonna be _real_ fun to deal with later.” With a rueful look, he says, “We’re bunk-mates.”

Rey winces at the thought of a thoroughly intoxicated and somehow even _more_ obnoxious Poe Dameron. “Sorry.”

He shrugs it off, then raises an eyebrow. “Sure you won’t stay?”

“I’m sure. Thank you.”

“Well, things won’t be the same around here without you, but you need to do what you need to do.”

She nods, narrowing her eyes a bit as she studies him. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell _me_?”

Finn presses his lips together and nods. “Yep, I’m sure. Is there, uh…” he throws another glance behind him, at her ship, before turning back to her. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Alright then.” He steps forward and gives her a quick hug, wishing her safe travels before they say a final goodbye, and then he makes his way over to Rose.

Rey watches him go, perplexed, then resolves to shrug off the niggling feeling and opens the door to the ship.


	5. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can’t tell if she’s mad at him for wanting to go off on his own, upset at leaving her friends behind, or something else.

*****

When Rey returns, Ben can’t help but notice the almost puzzled way she looks back out at her celebrating friends before she closes the door.

Then, she makes her way over to where he’s sitting on the bunk with the stack of Jedi texts and pulls her bag from her shoulders, emptying it.

Sets of clothes tumble out – it appears she’s taken 2 for her and 2 for him. She busies herself with folding them, her brows knitting together in concentration.

He can’t tell if she’s mad at him for wanting to go off on his own, upset at leaving her friends behind, or something else.

He keeps his eyes trained on her face, asking softly, “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she tells him, and scoops up the now-folded clothes only to take them to the drawer beneath the second bunk, stowing them away. “We should be going.”

She’s definitely mad at him. “Listen…” he starts. “Before we leave, I think we should talk ab—”

“If you’ve something to say, I think you should wait until we’ve left the planet. There are others here with Force sensitivity and if any of them have had _any_ training, they’ll be able to tell you’re here.”

Now _this_ side of Rey he does find a bit intimidating. As well as he knows her by sense and energy, her moods still feel a bit unpredictable. A bit volatile.

Perhaps they aren’t the worst pair, he can’t help but think.

So he sits on the bunk as the ship roars to life, and within moments they’ve lifted off and are flying high above the jungles. Confident they’ve passed the Resistance base, Ben rises to his feet and makes his way over to her, standing behind her chair.

He watches as she punches in coordinates and can feel her tensing at his very presence. “Where are we headed?”

“Tatooine.”

He’s tempted to ask why but knows he’ll get another short, clipped answer. So instead, he just continues to stand behind her, hands on the back of the captain’s chair as they ascend into space. 

In moments they’re far enough away from Ajan Kloss that he can feel some of her tension beginning to ease. She still won’t meet his eyes or tell him anything further about why they’re going to Tatooine.

So instead of pressing, he lets a hand fall to her shoulder as he tells her, “I’m going to change.”

Her head turns ever so slightly to look at where his hand has landed before she nods and turns her gaze back to the stars ahead.

With a sigh, Ben heads to the second bunk and opens the drawer beneath, pulling out one of the sets of men’s clothing. It’s a thin gray tunic and pants in a charcoal color – a few shades lighter than what he’d worn as Kylo Ren but nothing drastic. He wonders if she chose them for that purpose.

The ship is without proper bathing quarters – just bunks and a latrine – so he has to make do. He pulls his torn and bloodied sweater over his head, his hair falling into his eyes. When he tosses his head to flick it back into place, that’s when he spots Rey staring at him.

He fights most of the smirk he feels brimming, though one corner of his lips succumbs. He recalls the way she’d reacted the last time she’d seen him without a shirt – through their Force bond. He’d been in his quarters, just having finished his workout, and she’d been on Ahch-To.

_“Do you have something – a cowl or something you can put on?”_

If possible, she looks even more flustered now.

“What?” he asks, keeping his voice soft.

“Nothing.” She averts her eyes quickly, and he sighs to himself as he pulls the tunic over his head.

He makes quick work of changing his pants, keeping his eyes trained on the back of her head. She’s refusing to look at him and he thinks it’s because she can hear him changing.

“Alright,” he says after a moment. “You can look again.”

When she turns back to him, she looks a cross between embarrassed and annoyed. “What do you mean? I-I wasn’t…”

He just watches, letting his face betray nothing though he is secretly amused. Are the tips of her ears turning red?

“I wasn’t purposefully _not_ looking, I was just…” 

After a beat, she trails off and shakes her head, turning her attention back to navigating the ship.

He allows her to skirt the issue – this time – and he goes to join her at the helm of the ship. He plops down in the co-pilot’s seat and leans forward with his elbows braced on his knees. “Rey.”

She looks over at him and searches his eyes.

“What Maz said back there… about me wanting to isolate myself and go off on my own…” He shakes his head, holding her gaze. “That’s not what I really want.”

She stares at him a moment, almost questioningly, before her voice emerges just barely above a whisper. “It isn’t?”

“No. It’s what I _deserve_ , after everything I’ve done… but it’s not what I _want_.”

“Why do you think you deserve it, Ben?”

He chuckles mirthlessly. “Have you any idea what I’ve done? Not just in the time you’ve known me, but over the last several years?”

“Well, I—”

“I’ve massacred people, Rey. Obliterated planets. I wanted nothing more than absolute power over the entire galaxy and I let nothing stand in my way. Do you have any idea what kind of a monster that makes me?”

“Ben…”

She reaches for him and he catches her hand with both of his. He looks down at it, still bruised and cut up from everything she went through on Exegol and leading up to it. He brushes his thumb across her battered knuckles and without thinking, drops a kiss there.

“I deserve nothing more than to waste away on a prison ship for the rest of my days. And that sentence would even be more merciful than what I _truly_ deserve.”

He looks up, meeting her eyes. “But what I _want_ … is to be here. With you. You’re all I have, Rey, and even though you were mad at me for using all my energy doing it, _that’s_ why I resurrected you. I’ll face what I’ve done, and I’ll do whatever I possibly can to make up for it.” He shakes his head. “But I can’t do it without you.” And then, after a hard swallow, he adds, “I need you.”

She leans over to him and he tips his head to meet her lips. Unlike back on Exegol, this kiss is not desperate. It’s soft, tender and for a moment the skipping of his heart startles him.

Then they part, and she gives him the same brilliant smile she’d had when he first revived her. She touches his face and tells him, “I want to be with you too, Ben.”

He allows himself a smile and kisses her hand one more time before they both turn their eyes out to the stars ahead.

After a long beat passes between them, he glances over at her again. “You never explained why we’re going to Tatooine.”

As if remembering suddenly, Rey makes a small “Ah” noise and hits the autopilot switch before rising from the captain’s chair. She heads over to the drawer beneath one of the bunks and pulls out something covered in dark cloth.

When she returns to him, she hands him what she’s carrying, and it feels heavy – something metallic. Setting the clothed object in his lap, he opens the fabric to see that it’s two lightsabers – and he recognizes them immediately.

“The Skywalker sabers. We’re bringing these to Tatooine? Why?”

She sits beside him again and reaches out, lightly running her fingers over the hilt of Leia’s saber. “I thought that… since we’re not able to give your mother and your uncle a proper burial, that perhaps…” She shrugs one shoulder. “We might bury these instead.”

“These did serve us well on Exegol.” He looks up at her, meeting her eyes once more. “We may also be able to find some kybers there, so we can restore the other two sabers.”

He’s bestowed a bright smile as she says, “You’ve read my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Future chapters may still be slow-going! My day job is as a technical writer/trainer, and I have lots of training sessions throughout the month of January. I'll update whenever I can, promise!


	6. Consumed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even a sliver of paper can pass between them in that moment and it still doesn’t feel like enough. Her hands grasp at his back and run through his hair, and he’s so warm she wants to be consumed by him.

*****

It’s been a good hour since they’ve last spoken, and she’s almost alarmed at how comfortable it feels. It’s not an awkward silence by any means. She’s focusing on navigation while Ben pages through one of the Jedi texts. 

They’re still a good several hours from reaching Tatooine but whereas she always felt in a hurry to reach her destination, right now she’s perfectly content where she is.

She glances over at Ben, and she takes a moment to let her eyes move over his form. He’s sprawled out on the co-pilot’s chair with one long leg stretched out in front of him, the other bent with one foot resting on the ship’s dash. 

She can’t help but notice the difference in him. As Kylo Ren, he had been stiff and tense, each movement rigid with barely-repressed rage. But now, as Ben, he’s relaxed. His movements are languid and smooth, without a hint of discomfort. He almost fills the space he’s in like a fluid. The contrast is nothing short of mesmerizing.

After a moment, she sees the corner of his mouth quirk upward as he warns lowly, “You’ll burn a hole in my head if you don’t stop staring.”

She grins and flicks the autopilot switch before leaning over his shoulder. “What are you reading about?”

“Our dyad,” he tells her, and looks up to smile at her briefly before looking back down, turning a page. 

“And? What does it say?”

“Not much in this particular text,” he sighs, flicking another page. “The most this says is that it happens when two incredibly powerful Force users connect, and that it’s the most powerful known method of using the Force.”

“Have you looked at any others?” she asks, her gaze traveling down to the pile of books at his feet.

“Not yet.” He closes the one he’s reading, the ancient and thick pages creaking as he does so. A small plume of dust emerges when the book is fully closed, and a musty smell hits her nose.

“Well, I can take this one…”

Just as she leans down to grab for another of the Jedi texts, she feels his hand close around her wrist. He’s done it before under different circumstances – their battle in the forest, and aboard the Supremacy when he cuffed her. This time, his grasp on her is gentle. She feels his thumb slide to her pulse point, which speeds up in answer.

She meets his eyes, watching them search her own. “I think you should get some sleep,” he tells her softly.

“What? I’m not tired.”

His eyes refuse to release her as he counters, “You are. I can feel it in you, Rey.”

She sighs, momentarily hating their unspoken bond. “I want to help you. I want to learn more about our dyad as well.”

He nods. “And you will. In the morning.”

He sets the book in his lap aside and gets to his feet, slight pressure on her wrist inciting her to do the same. Once they’re both standing, he leads her to the bunk where he had initially reposed. They say nothing and she knows there’s no use arguing with him. 

She sits, her lips pressing together as she watches him crouch in front of her. For a moment, he just looks up at her, his hands braced on his knees.

She searches his eyes and when she sees a small smile plucking at the edges of his full lips, she allows herself to smile back. He’s got her. She can’t refuse him.

Then he reaches for her right ankle, holding it gently as he pulls off one shoe, then moves to the other foot to do the same. Everything about him right now is tender and gentle… downright nurturing. She marvels at seeing this side of him. 

Once she’s been divested of her shoes, he stands as she lies back. He reaches for the blankets and pulls them to her collarbone, resting his hand there gently. 

“Get some rest,” he urges her, and when she opens her mouth to protest he swoops in and plants a kiss there instead.

“What will you do?” she asks mindlessly, settling against the pillow.

He shrugs one shoulder and again the motion is languid – nothing like Kylo Ren. “Not sure. I might conquer a few neighboring planets, but I won’t wake you up while I’m doing it.”

She rolls her eyes while he smiles at her. The sound of a small chuckle escaping him makes her heart soar.

Then he touches a few fingers to her temple, grazing them gently downward as he whispers, “Sleep,” and she feels his Force energy surrounding her, pulling her under.

When she opens her eyes, all she feels is cold stone beneath her. She rolls onto her side and sees gray all around her – jagged rock formations and deep caverns. _Exegol._

She presses a palm to the stone beneath her and works to push herself up. Her bones protest and pain seems to shoot through her at every angle. She coughs as some of the errant dust makes its way into her mouth, and she finally pushes herself up to a kneeling, seated position.

That’s when she sees him – Ben. He’s several feet away from her and sprawled on his back, unmoving. Panic seizes her and she ignores the tremors in her limbs and the pain infiltrating every movement, her vision tunneling on him. 

With much effort, she gets to him. A hand clamps around his sweater-clad upper arm first. It’s stiff beneath her and his muscles don’t seem to react to her touch. Then a hand touches down against cold rock on his other side, just near his hip. 

Her eyes flick to his face and she gasps at the expression on his face. His eyes are wide and staring upward. His lips are pressed together, and his skin looks sallow - almost gray. Her grip on his upper arm tightens, and it remains stiff as ever.

“Ben?”

The lower half of her body completes the painful journey to him until she’s seated beside him, her hip against his. She touches his face and again she gasps, this time at how cold he is.

He can’t be dead. “Ben…”

She grabs a fistful of his dust-covered, torn sweater and uses it as leverage to pull herself closer. Her other hand skirts his side and she makes a face as something wet and sticky comes away. When she looks down at her hand, all she sees is dark, congealed blood.

“No…” she murmurs and leans up further to look directly into his eyes. “No, no, no, no…”

It finally sinks in what has happened – he’s been killed. “BEN!”

Her voice echoes all around her, bouncing around the cavern. After a moment she hears laughter – but it’s not jubilant in nature, no. Instead it’s sinister.

She hears footsteps echoing in the cavern next. They’re slow and measured. And as she clings to Ben, staring into his lifeless face, that’s when she feels a shadow fall over them.

She looks up to see Emperor Palpatine – her grandfather – standing over them with an awful, twisted grin on his mangled face. 

“Foolish child,” he chuckles mirthlessly. “Did you really think you two would find happiness? After everything he’s done?”

Tears spring forth from her eyes and she balls up more of his sweater in her hand. She looks down at him just as she feels the weight of him shifting. Then suddenly he’s fading right in front of her, his clothes collapsing against the stone.

She screams through her tears and gathers his sweater against her chest, screaming and screaming until she loses her voice.

“Rey…” Palpatine calls to her. 

“Rey? Rey!”

Two arms grip her upper arms and her eyes fly open on a scream, which quickly dies in her throat as she sees Ben’s face in front of hers, his eyes large with worry.

“Ben?” she croaks, voice hoarse from screaming.

“Gods,” he exhales roughly, loosening his grip on her upper arms. “You were wailing and screaming so loud – I thought I was never going to be able to wake you up.”

The sight of him in front of her, animated and concerned and alive, so very much alive, is suddenly overwhelming. She chokes on a sob, “Ben,” and twines her arms completely around his shoulders until he’s squeezed against her.

Not even a sliver of paper can pass between them in that moment and it still doesn’t feel like enough. Her hands grasp at his back and run through his hair, and he’s so warm she wants to be consumed by him.

“What were you dreaming about?” he asks, his voice rumbling against her chest as his hand skips up her back.

She shakes her head against him, still too overwhelmed to form words other than his name. She cups the back of his neck and pulls back, her eyes moving over every inch of his face.

He opens his mouth to question further and that’s when she lunges for him. She crushes her lips against his in desperation, kissing him so fiercely she can feel her own lips bruising. 

He sits motionless against her, momentarily stunned, before he kisses back fully. His arms tighten around her waist like a vise and she’s still not close enough to him.

Soon her hands are grabbing at his tunic while his dive into her hair. She finds the hem and with eyes closed begins pulling it up his body. Their lips break only long enough for him to take over the task of pulling it over his head before their fevered kisses resume.

Her hands touch down against his chest and trail down his abdomen; she feels his muscles twitch and jump under her touch.

“Rey…”

His voice is ragged and her pulse skyrockets as she kisses him deeper. Her fingertips trace defined muscles until they land at the waistband of his pants. He jumps under her touch again, though this time their lips break apart and he leans away.

“Rey, wait.”

Her mind is clouded as she registers him pulling away, his image swimming back into view in front of her. She reaches for him again and he clamps his hands around both her wrists.

“Stop.” This time his voice is firm and resolute. He pins her with a look and she just watches him. “You had a nightmare. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“What?” If anything, she feels as though she’s thinking more clearly than ever. She feels her anger rising. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s the truth, and because I won’t take advantage of you.”

“Take advantage?” _How dare he?_ “If anything, advantage is being fully granted and none is being taken.”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, briefly averting his eyes. “Look, if you want to tell me about your nightmare, I’m here to listen.”

Her eyes flick over the sight of his bare skin in the low light on the ship – it’s anything but sallow. It looks warm and full of life and she still feels an ache at the very core of herself to be completely consumed by him.

She’s drawn back to his eyes by his voice. “But I think we should maybe… pause anything further for right now.”

She should admire him for his restraint, and for wanting to respect her emotional state. If anything, she just feels even more mad.

So when he asks softly, “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?” the response from her is as instantaneous as a heartbeat. 

She shakes her head. “No. No, that’s fine, I—” She gives him a look. “I’d hate to _take advantage_ of you, and your listening skills.”

Ben presses his lips together and nods just once in acknowledgement. He appears to understand what she’s doing, and he opts not to take the bait. “Very well. I’ll, uh…” He reaches back for his discarded tunic and pulls it on once again. “I’ll let you get back to sleep then.”

“Fine.” She glares at his back as he walks away from her and returns to the stack of Jedi texts. 

The once-neat stack of them is now a haphazard pile, and she wonders if he had tripped over them to get to her in the midst of her screaming. 

Their eyes catch ever so briefly, his expressing sorrow while hers beam frustration, and she turns on her side to shut him out.


	7. Reservations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those connections sparked an intimacy between them. And now, on their own for the first time since their many battles against one another and then against all odds, Ben is realizing how little they actually know of one another – how backwards this entire thing feels.

*****

He’s turned three pages now without hardly reading a word, his eyes drifting to Rey’s stiff back every few seconds. 

She’s still awake – he can tell she is. He can practically feel the anger radiating off of her. But he knows he did what was right, though it wasn’t altogether altruistic.

The truth of it is that he has never found himself in a situation quite like that before. From the terror induced by her screams to suddenly feeling her tugging at his clothes had been an overwhelming shift.

And he’s never been quite as close to a woman before. He’d had female friends in the Jedi academy – had even harbored romantic feelings for a couple of them – but nothing like this.

Since their first meeting in the forests of Takodana, he’d felt something. A pull of sorts. He thinks back to when he’d first captured her – when he’d felt the weight of her in his arms as he carried her on board his ship.

Something about that moment felt… familiar, in a way. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it then only to acknowledge that he felt something. But looking back now, it had been some sort of inexplicable familiarity.

_“Don’t be afraid, I feel it too.”_

And then when Snoke connected their minds – Snoke, Palpatine, whoever it truly had been – that familiarity had only grown. He began craving those connections, though he would have denied it had she ever asked.

Those connections sparked an intimacy between them. And now, on their own for the first time since their many battles against one another and then against all odds, Ben is realizing how little they actually know of one another – how backwards this entire thing feels.

There was a shared intimacy without getting to know one another. There was familiarity without a true knowledge of where the other had come from – how they had grown up. And when Rey began removing his shirt only moments earlier, it had suddenly hit him how fast they were moving for how unfamiliar they still were with one another.

He sighs and tries to get the page in front of him to pull back into focus. He looks up at Rey to find her positioning more relaxed. He allows himself a moment to just watch her and notices that her breathing has deepened. She’s fallen back to sleep.

When she wakes, will she still be mad at him? Will she come to understand how he feels, about this backward route their relationship has taken on?

He flicks another page and rubs his eyes, forcing himself to focus on the material in front of him and to put thoughts of their relationship to bed for awhile alongside his sleeping companion.

**

Ben’s head jerks upward, and he makes a small grunting noise at the back of his throat. He’s slouched over in the captain’s chair and looks around in a fog, re-orienting himself with his surroundings. As he sits straighter, he feels something sliding off his lap and he mindlessly grabs the book before it hits the floor.

He had fallen asleep. He looks down at the book in his hand, wondering where he had left off and what exactly had happened. When he looks ahead, he sees nothing but the planet of Tatooine in front of him. They’re incredibly close to entering the planet’s atmosphere. He’ll need to take over the controls soon.

He then looks over his shoulder, back at the bunk where Rey lies asleep, facing him now. He considers waking her only momentarily before taking note of the expression of peace on her face. He’s never seen her look so at ease. Their encounters before this had always been fraught with tension. Even when they both had survived the ordeal on Exegol, she still held a perpetually-tense expression.

Now the lines in her forehead are gone. Her mouth has settled in a soft smile, and her breathing is deep and serene.

Ben reaches for her with his mind, searching out those tendrils of her Force energy. He finds them easily but doesn’t probe enough to wake her. His skin practically hums at the feeling of her energy swimming around his. He only hopes the energy she’s giving off will be a reflection of her mood when she does wake up.

He shuts his mind away from hers then as he turns off the autopilot and acclimates himself to the ship’s controls. They’re so close now the entire planet fills his field of vision, and he prepares to enter the atmosphere.

As they do, the ship rumbles with a bit of turbulence. He can feel her mind seeking his – she’s waking up. He keeps his eyes ahead as he steers the ship, flying over endless desert as his eyes flick to the navigation chart on the dash. The small red blip that represents their transport ship draws closer to the solid green dot on the map that indicates their destination. 

“Ben?”

“Good morning,” he greets her, keeping his eyes on their flight path. “We’re almost there.”

He hears her shifting in the bunk and can see her sitting up in his mind’s eye. She slips into her shoes and then he can feel her approaching.

“I can see that,” she tells him, and her tone of voice is indiscernible.

She plops down in the co-pilot’s seat, sprawling out as she yawns. He wonders how long each of them have slept since leaving Exegol. “Where exactly will we be landing?” he asks.

Rey rubs her eyes, blinking several times as if still trying to wake up fully. “We’ll be near where your uncle was raised.”

He remembers only faintly hearing about Luke’s origins on Tatooine – how he was raised by Anakin’s stepbrother Owen Lars, and Owen’s wife Beru. He remembers Luke mentioning in passing how they had perished in a targeted attack by the Empire, and how that had been the moment that spurred him to join the Rebellion and to train as a Jedi. 

“All because of a droid,” he murmurs, and it’s only upon hearing Rey’s “What?” that he realizes it was said aloud.

“I’ll tell you later.”

Rey hums shortly, and the sound makes him look over at her. He assesses her silently for a moment, trying to determine whether or not she’s still upset with him.

“Do you want the controls?”

“Alright,” she responds, and the tone this time is a bit on the cool side. 

He decides to proceed with caution. “I’ll gather our things,” he tells her, and off her nod he begins scooping up the Jedi texts, bringing them over to the bunks.   
Out of one of the drawers beneath, he pulls out two bags – one for himself and one for her. In his, he stows one of the texts he’d been reading, along with one of the unfinished lightsaber hilts. In Rey’s, he places the cloth-wrapped lightsabers of his mother and uncle, along with the other unfinished hilt.

Before long, Rey is taking them in for a landing and Ben braces himself on the wall of the ship as it rumbles around him with their descent.

Their landing is smooth though the old ship groans around them. Rey cuts the engine and Ben listens to the various whirring, humming, and wheezing as the ship powers down. Then they’re surrounded by silence. 

Rey rises to her feet and turns to him, voice still even and somewhat terse as she tells him, “I’d like to change before we disembark.”

He nods, “Of course, sure,” and makes a sweeping gesture toward the bunks. 

She goes over and opens one of the drawers, crouching down as she rummages through the spare clothes she’d brought along. Having clearly found a set for herself, she stands with an armful and turns to him.

She quirks one eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m going to just change in front of you with you watching me?”

Almost embarrassed, Ben shakes his head. “No. No, certainly not. Um…” He turns his back on her and makes a face at himself. 

He then hears the rustling of cloth and closes his eyes. He tries not to picture what she’s doing, reminding himself that he stopped further clothing removal last night because of how quickly things seemed to be moving between them. He reminds himself that this is why Rey is behaving so coolly toward him now, and that picturing her changing would not do either of them any good in their current situation.

“There,” she says after a moment, and he takes that as his cue to turn around.

She isn’t dressed much differently than she normally is. Her clothing is gray, like his, but it wraps around her form as all of her other clothing does. She’s taken her hair down momentarily but is busying herself wrapping it back up – this time in a single braid off to one side. 

She’s watching him with her head tipped to one side as she finishes the braid, and he’s not sure but he thinks she looks a little amused. When finished, she straightens up.

“Are we ready then?”

He nods. “Yeah. Uh… ready when you are.” 

“Great.” She grabs the bag he’d set aside for her and slings it across her body.

She moves quickly toward him and as she begins to brush past him for the door, he reaches out and just barely catches her fingers within his own.

“Rey, wait.” When she turns to him, her fingers begin to release his, but he hangs on, twining them together. 

“About what happened – after your dream—”

“Ben, don’t—”

“No, I need to say this.” He looks down at their joined hands. “When I stopped you- when I stopped _us_ , I guess… it wasn’t because I didn’t want to.” He meets her eyes. “I-I wanted to.”

She’s silent, and a crease appears between her brows that he imagines smoothing away with his thumb. He doesn’t, though.

“It’s just…” He swallows, shaking his head. He makes a face at himself again and wonders how embracing his true identity turned him into such a bumbling idiot. “It’s just that… through everything that’s happened – between us, between our respective sides, everything – I feel as though we haven’t had much time to really know very much about one another.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, and the softness of her tone gives him a sliver of hope that this bumbling diatribe won’t blow up in his face.

“I mean we’re _familiar_ with each other. We know each other by sense and by energy. But all the rest… there hasn’t been much time.”

He watches as realization dawns. Rey begins to slowly nod. “I see.”

“And as well as we know each other in some ways… I’d like us to know each other in some of those other ways before… before we, uh—”

“That’s fine, Ben,” she cuts him off with a smile, and relief floods over him. “I suppose you’re right in that we haven’t exactly had much opportunity to know one another outside of our Force bond. And after the dream I had – I got carried away.”

“Will you tell me about your dream?”

Rey nods, restoring another glimmer of hope that her anger has dissipated. “I will. Soon. For now…” She pats the bag at her side. “Let’s say a proper goodbye.”

When she holds out her hand to him, the last of his reservations subside and he takes her hand with a smile.


	8. Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still taking gigantic liberties with the Force and the dyad!

*****

They’re still staring at the patch of sand where they buried Luke and Leia’s sabers. It feels like hours have passed, though by the placement of the twin suns, she knows it’s not yet midday.

Burying the sabers had been cathartic – for both her and for Ben. She had a chance to reflect on the impact made on her life by both Luke and Leia, while Ben mourned the loss of his mother and uncle. He had shed tears, and she thinks even some grief over what he’d done to his father made its way out during that time also.

She hadn’t whispered contrite sayings in those moments or offered very much in the way of comfort aside from her presence. She knew his moods enough to know that if she had tried offering condolences, he would have shut down.

So she had simply sat by him, allowed her shoulder to lean against his as their only means of contact while he worked through his grief. And while he simultaneously shed tears and repressed anger, one phrase was continuously uttered:

_“So much time.”_

And she didn’t need to ask what he meant. She knew. So much time wasted on darkness, on indulging rage sparked by a fractured family dynamic. So much time spent on trying to do the impossible and rule the entire galaxy. 

So much time, and so many lives. She thinks back to what Maz had said to her at the Resistance base.

_“You have much to understand of the gravity of his past. Be patient.”_

She _wants_ to understand. She wants to know everything and understand the complete picture. But she knows, no matter how much Ben tells her, that it’s only an aspect of something bigger. 

She sighs, wishing she’d had more time with Leia and with Luke. There’s so much she wanted to ask them – about Ben, about the past, about things she knew she shouldn’t dare ask them about at the time.

Luke had seen their connection with his own eyes and had been furious at the time. She still remembers the venom in his words.

_“You opened yourself to the dark side for a pair of pretty eyes.”_

And she hadn’t the opportunity to explain to him then – at least, not much before she left Ahch-To – that there was something good in Ben aching to be set free. Not to mention, she had also harbored some ill will toward her mentor at the time from hearing what had happened at the Jedi Academy, with Ben. 

_So much time_ wasted on things that could have been discussed instead of resorting to guttural reactions and assumptions. So much time spent on vengeance and destruction.

“What are you thinking about?”

His low voice, honeyed and soft, infiltrates her thoughts. There’s still warmth where their shoulders touch, and she turns to find him looking down at her, his head so very close.

“Time,” she murmurs, and turns her eyes out to the binary suns. 

Ben nods, as if understanding her train of thought. “Me too.”

She stretches her legs out in front of her momentarily before bringing her knees closer to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if your uncle hadn’t confronted you that night at the Academy?”

His brows flick upward. “And tried to kill me?” Then he nods. “Yeah, sometimes.”

“He had said he was scared of you. Of the power he sensed in you.”

He nods. “Would’ve been nice to hear instead of waking up to a lightsaber over my head. My mother didn’t say anything either. But it’s why she shipped me off to the Academy. She sensed the same thing and got scared.”

“What about…” She stops herself from saying Han’s name, still not entirely certain of Ben’s emotional state when it comes to his father.

“My dad?” he asks, completing the thought for her.

As she nods, she studies his still-quite-close face, in particular his eyes. Any pain she sees there has lessened – nothing like what she saw in him on Starkiller Base after he’d killed him or even on the elevator on board the Supremacy. He really does look as though he’s begun making his peace with it.

“My dad was never a Force-user, but he used to tell me I had ‘ancient eyes.’” With a half-chuckle, he mimics Han’s voice and says, “’Those eyes, kid. It’s like you were waiting a thousand years to be born.’”

Rey can practically hear Han’s gruff voice in her head, and she allows herself a small smile. 

“When I killed him—”

“Ben, we don’t need to talk about th—”

Her voice is stopped by his finger on her lips. She meets his eyes and sees the solemnity there. 

“Yes. We do.”

So she simply nods, and when his finger falls away she catches his hand in both of hers. She rearranges herself so she’s sitting facing him with her legs crossed, their clasped hands in her lap.

Ben watches her silently for a moment and then continues. “When I killed him… I had thought that was the only way. I was in so much pain – I felt torn apart by what I felt I was supposed to do and who I was supposed to be… and by who I was.”

When their eyes meet again, his are misty. He swallows hard. “I loved my father, Rey. But at the time, I thought destroying that part of me – _him_ and his goodness and his sentimental nature – I thought that would free me from the pain and complete my journey to the dark side.”

His head dips and a tear breaks free from his right eye. Without thinking, she reaches up and catches it with the back of her finger as it sweeps up his cheek. “But it didn’t, did it?” she asks, barely above a whisper.

“It did the opposite. It splintered me. If anything it made the call to the light that much louder. And in the end, it was my father who brought me back. I saw him in a vision – I’m not sure if it was my mother that made him appear or something else.”

He looks down at her. “And you. You are largely responsible for bringing me back too. When you healed me…” 

Rey watches as he trails off and shakes his head, either unable to put his thoughts into words or deeming it not necessary. 

She uncrosses her legs and drops his hand, pleasantly surprised when she feels his arm wrapping around her, pulling her close. Her chest is nearly against his back, and his chin is in her hair. 

“When you healed me I felt something repaired at the very core of me. My father just… gave me the push I needed.”

“Did you tell him how you felt? About everything?”

She feels his chin scraping back and forth on the top of her head as he nods, then says, “Yes. Somewhat. But he knew. He always knew.”

**

They remain sitting together at the saber burial site by Luke’s childhood home until well into the afternoon. They spend much more time discussing his mother and his own childhood until their stomachs begin to sound out their emptiness.

“I suppose we should find something to eat,” Ben says, untangling his arms from around her frame and standing up.

He extends his hand to her and she smiles, thinking of the other times it was covered with a black leather glove, beckoning her to the dark. This time she takes it without hesitation, and he pulls her to her feet in the light, a hand resting on her lower back to steady her as she brushes sand off her clothes.

“Where can we go?” she asks, squinting up at him against the bright suns.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Closest, I think, is Mos Eisley.”

“Who’s that?”

They begin walking, and Ben smiles over at her. “It’s not a person, it’s a spaceport. There’s a cantina my parents have mentioned before.”

Though as Ben tells her it’s a short distance to the cantina, they realize they are without speeders or other transport and instead board their ship again. Within minutes they’ve touched down just yards away from the cantina, and as they disembark it’s then that she notices the stares they’re garnering.

Ben curses under his breath and mutters, “I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of—” Before she can finish, his hand grips her upper arm and pulls her back up onto the ship.

“They recognize us. Or at the very least, they recognize _you_.”

She raises her brows. “Me?”

“You’ve been an enemy of the First Order since Snoke’s death.”

“Thanks to you,” she reminds him.

“Right. Not only that, but as far as people know you’re the last remaining Jedi and one of the key faces of the Resistance.” Shrugging one shoulder, he adds, “And as Supreme Leader, I _did_ begin making appearances without my mask. I’m certain my face has gotten around.”

“So what can we do? We don’t have any cloaks or masks to hide behind.”

She watches him pace near the ship’s exit ramp, which is still lowered. “I don’t know. A person can’t exactly use a Jedi mind trick on an entire area.”

As her eyes search the middle distance in front of her, a thought occurs, and she perks up. “A _person_ , perhaps not. But what about a dyad?”

“Huh?” He spins on his heel to face her.

She takes a few steps toward him and smiles. “If our dyad is truly as powerful as some of those texts hint at – then wouldn’t it be possible that _together_ we could perform a mind trick on an entire area?”

He considers this for a moment, his expression volleying between skepticism and consideration. Then he meets her eyes and asks, “And if it doesn’t work?”

Rey takes one more step toward him, closing the distance, and takes his hands in both of hers. “Then we’ll run. Try again somewhere else.”

Ben searches her eyes back and forth, swallowing slowly. After a beat, he nods. “Alright. I guess it’s worth a shot.”

Then together they stand at the top of the ship’s exit ramp, shoulder-to-shoulder. Rey closes her eyes and reaches out with the Force – she imagines her tendrils of light finding not only the cantina but the surrounding area, enveloping all of it. She can feel a similar energy radiating off of Ben. 

In her mind’s eye, his energy is more fluid than light – it washes over the surrounding area and she takes a deep breath through her nose, breathing out her intent.

 _“No one here shall recognize us,”_ she murmurs.

Beside her, she hears Ben doing a similar inhale and exhale before he adds, _“We can pass through without incident.”_

Then she can feel their energy combining, a certain surge of power coursing through her veins before it dissipates. 

She opens her eyes and looks over at Ben. “Ready?”

With a resigned look, he sighs and says, “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Let’s go.”

And together they head down the exit ramp and out into the bright Tatooine sunlight.


End file.
